Saqib from Microsoft is blind and demoed using Visual Studio at Build this year https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iWXebEeGwn0
Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14347908
How can you program if you're blind? (2013)
11–20 of 22 posts
Re: How can you program if you're blind? (2013)
#12Earlier quoted context omitted.
At 2:22 he has to press F5 to build. Personally, I would like to say "Build", "Run", "Next Error", "insert line below", "rename function foo to bar", "Reformat file", "Reformat method", etc in my editor. Wouldn't we all benefit by having an editor that had some voice commands?
I hope a blind person will be able to answer you but I can't really imagine how voice command would be more efficient than a simple keyboard shortcut. Admittedly the F keys are not the easiest to access though, I prefer emacs-style chording.
I'm not blind, but personally I would find voice commands to be quite useful, since I can speak much faster than I can type. Keyboard shortcuts are similarly efficient, but they are somewhat hard to memorize when you only infrequently use them.
Unfortunately, the state-of-the-art in speech recognition is not quite there yet, especially when you want to use arbitrary identifiers like strncmp that can't be found in any pronunciation dictionary.
Re: How can you program if you're blind? (2013)
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
At 2:22 he has to press F5 to build. Personally, I would like to say "Build", "Run", "Next Error", "insert line below", "rename function foo to bar", "Reformat file", "Reformat method", etc in my editor. Wouldn't we all benefit by having an editor that had some voice commands?
I hope a blind person will be able to answer you but I can't really imagine how voice command would be more efficient than a simple keyboard shortcut. Admittedly the F keys are not the easiest to access though, I prefer emacs-style chording.
Ok, imagine that you're sitting in front of a tablet without a keyboard. That's an easy use case.
Yes, one can be quite fast if they're sitting with their fingers resting on the keyboard. I wouldn't want to take that away.
However, I'm often sitting back reviewing what I wrote, and I'd certainly like the option of have my computer assist via voice without needing to reach for the keyboard.
Re: How can you program if you're blind? (2013)
#14A lot of these solutions center on the entry part of programming.
I don't know what it is like to program blind, but I imagine the big challenge is on reading and stepping through code.
When I do that, I have multiple windows that step through the structure and then I pause the code and interrogate variables.
When someone cannot see, do they load up a greater part of the code into their memory? Instead of relying on the editor to pull up the definition of a function in a window, do they just read it once and keep that in their head?
For example, I am in a subroutine in a subroutine, and I notice that an array has an unexpected value. I look at the function that is assigning that value and I wonder what it does. That is 4 windows right there.
Re: How can you program if you're blind? (2013)
#15A man I worked with used a combination of a magnifier--he could see a foot-high letter, I gather--and a screen reader.
Re: How can you program if you're blind? (2013)
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
I hope a blind person will be able to answer you but I can't really imagine how voice command would be more efficient than a simple keyboard shortcut. Admittedly the F keys are not the easiest to access though, I prefer emacs-style chording.
I'm not blind, but personally I would find voice commands to be quite useful, since I can speak much faster than I can type. Keyboard shortcuts are similarly efficient, but they are somewhat hard to memorize when you only infrequently use them. Unfortunately, the state-of-the-art in speech recognition is not quite there yet, especially when you want to use arbitrary identifiers like strncmp that can't be found in any…
>personally I would find voice commands to be quite useful, since I can speak much faster than I can type.
Interesting. Wouldn't speech recognition be marginally to somewhat slower in response, than response to keyboard commands, though? More so, considering that a lot of processing has to be done to recognize speech, not to mention the time to receive the audio input via the mic, do analog-to-digital conversion (assuming that is needed, not sure these days), etc.
Re: How can you program if you're blind? (2013)
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
I hope a blind person will be able to answer you but I can't really imagine how voice command would be more efficient than a simple keyboard shortcut. Admittedly the F keys are not the easiest to access though, I prefer emacs-style chording.
Ok, imagine that you're sitting in front of a tablet without a keyboard. That's an easy use case. Yes, one can be quite fast if they're sitting with their fingers resting on the keyboard. I wouldn't want to take that away. However, I'm often sitting back reviewing what I wrote, and I'd certainly like the option of have my computer assist via voice without needing to reach for the keyboard.
Yes, that's a good use case. I've often thought it would be useful if I could do some light work (reading, maybe some form of more active work too), when I am not at my PC or laptop - though wouldn't want to do it all the time, just have the option and use it sometimes.
Re: How can you program if you're blind? (2013)
#18A blind person contacted me some time ago to check if I could give him training on Python. He was already using computers using some sort of open source software that helped with his disability, but it was rather inefficient.
After discussions, we concluded that (at least given the tech we knew about and that he could afford), it would not work out. Sad for such people.
Re: How can you program if you're blind? (2013)
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not blind, but personally I would find voice commands to be quite useful, since I can speak much faster than I can type. Keyboard shortcuts are similarly efficient, but they are somewhat hard to memorize when you only infrequently use them. Unfortunately, the state-of-the-art in speech recognition is not quite there yet, especially when you want to use arbitrary identifiers like strncmp that can't be found in any…
>personally I would find voice commands to be quite useful, since I can speak much faster than I can type. Interesting. Wouldn't speech recognition be marginally to somewhat slower in response, than response to keyboard commands, though? More so, considering that a lot of processing has to be done to recognize speech, not to mention the time to receive the audio input via the mic, do analog-to-digital conversion (ass…
What's a lot of processing? Speech recognition can be done on a phone. Are you sitting with your hands on your keyboard at all times while programming? Do you need to move the cursor to a variable, function, etc to refactor? You are assuming that we can only say commands that are bound to a key?
"Set breakpoint on line 20" -- You had to reach for the mouse in your world?
Re: How can you program if you're blind? (2013)
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
>personally I would find voice commands to be quite useful, since I can speak much faster than I can type. Interesting. Wouldn't speech recognition be marginally to somewhat slower in response, than response to keyboard commands, though? More so, considering that a lot of processing has to be done to recognize speech, not to mention the time to receive the audio input via the mic, do analog-to-digital conversion (ass…
What's a lot of processing? Speech recognition can be done on a phone. Are you sitting with your hands on your keyboard at all times while programming? Do you need to move the cursor to a variable, function, etc to refactor? You are assuming that we can only say commands that are bound to a key? "Set breakpoint on line 20" -- You had to reach for the mouse in your world?
I admit that I'm pretty mouse-adverse but I wouldn't have to use the mouse for any of that. Actually I mostly only use the mouse to browse the web.
But anyway, that's not really important, I agree that good "intelligent" speech recognition would be very useful for uncommon tasks. But building a project, searching and replacing are tasks that are so common that I can't imagine having to reach for the mouse to do them, much less pronounce them out loud.
And imagine the mess if you're coding in an open space and everybody chitchats with their computers...